Discoverability is not morally neutral

I tend to learn about books/TV series/other creative works because I've seen it around, people are talking about it, it seems vaguely interesting, I think I'll check it out.

 

Occasionally, when I do check it out, I fall in love with it. Most creative works I don't fall in love with, but occasionally I do. I tend to have one primary fandom that I'm absolutely in love with going at any given time. I have no control over when this happens, and I have no control over when and how it switches to another primary fandom. 

And every once in a while - although certainly more often than I'd prefer! - I learn, long after falling in love with a creative work, that the creator is a gross person, which makes me no longer want to be a fan of the work. 

 

People in this situation often get rid of their books via used bookstores or libraries or little free libraries.

 

But the problem with that is it increases discoverability by people who might be like "Yeah, I've heard of that, it seems vaguely interesting, I think I'll check it out!" but aren't into it enough to know why the creator of the work is gross.

 

Which could then lead them into this very unwanted situation of falling in love with the work, and being in love with a work by a gross creator.

 

This is a problem. Discoverability is not morally neutral - especially when the creator is still alive and using their money to do harm or protect themselves from the consequences of harm they've done.

 

As a reader/viewer, I don't want to be emotionally attached to works by a gross creator. It has happened entirely too often! I would very much like product labelling and curation norms to protect me from this by making me aware of the issues before make the decision to read/watch.

 

***

 

What do I mean by "protect me"?

 

An example of this is the societal norms surrounding labelling/classifying/marketing/curating sexual content.

 

I have certainly in my life encountered sexual content that I'd rather not have seen, but in every instance, I felt like "Well, what did I expect?"

 

When I was 11 I had the chance to stealthily watch an R-rated movie, and quickly became uncomfortable as it referenced aspects of sex that were far too advanced for me to even think about. Well, what did I expect? It's 18+!

 

Sometimes I've clicked on questionable links and seen thoroughly unappealing porn. Well, what did I expect? I clicked on a questionable link!

 

Some (but not all) of the sexual content aspects of Monty Python made me uncomfortable watching as a teenager (and others made me uncomfortable watching with my parents in the room). Well, what did I expect? It was introduced to me as irreverent, boundary-pushing humour written by a male comedy troupe!

 

This sense of "well, what did I expect?" is useful! I want that every time I come across something I didn't actually want to see!

 

However, this sense of "what did I expect?" doesn't seem to work for other types of content that I might want to be warned about. For example, I didn't anticipate the racism in Monty Python. I'm not able to explain why I was able to anticipate the sexual content but not the racism, but something about it didn't end up working out for me the way I wanted to.

 

This needs to be fixed somehow. We need a way for audience members - especially ignorant audience members - to be effectively forewarned, like we are with sexual content. 

 

The big problem for me with racism and Monty Python is that I wasn't worldly enough to perceive it. But if I had gone in forewarned, and if I had decided to watch it anyway (Teenage Me might have watched it anyway to see what the big deal is), I would have kept an eye out, asked questions (I would have been comfortable asking my parents and they would have answered), and come away more informed.  

But instead, I stumbled upon something I didn't even know was racist and went around gleefully talking it up to everyone who would listen for decades.  Much like how, multiple times, I've stumbled upon - and become emotionally attached to - works that I would never have given the time of day if I had known in advance that the creator was a bad person I don't want to support, and gleefully promoted those works to other people.

 

***

 

I don't know what the answer is for the problem of unwanted discoverability of gross creators. I don't want to burn books or ban books. I just don't want to fall in love with any more works by gross creators without being aware of the problems.

 

Maybe a useful approach would be to treat works by gross creators the way you would obscure reference books. They aren't the shelves, but you can pull them from the stacks or order them on request - not because they're banned, but rather because there's higher priority for shelf space. That way, people won't accidentally stumble on them and innocently fall in love with them - you have to know about them to ask for them, and, if we normalize this approach, the fact that they're not on the shelf might lead people to think "Oh, what if this is problematic?"

 

I'm sure other people who are smarter than me can also think of other useful approaches. And hopefully some of these people are in charge of curation and discoverability.

Levelling up my Twitter achievements

Eric Idle retweeted me! Screenshot:

The original link can be found here, but it's not as obvious from a direct link to the tweet itself that Eric Idle retweeted it.

A new personal best on Twitter!

Once upon a time, Eddie Izzard retweeted me.  It was the best thing that had ever happened to me on Twitter and I danced around like an idiot and called up people on the actual telephone to tell them that this had happened and saved the screenshot under the file name "I win at twitter".

Today a new personal best happened:

@impstrump Should be available for download on http://t.co/VCaehm4wyk We are exploring options.  It seems nuts no one can buy it...
— Eric Idle (@EricIdle) April 27, 2014

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, that's Eric Idle. Of Monty Python fame.  Replying personally (and nearly-immediately!) to a question I asked.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

I was rather surprised how many people lauded Eric Idle's performance of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life in the Olympic Closing Ceremonies. I don't dislike it myself (and took childish delight in the fact that Eric used the word "shit" in the Olympics), but I always figured it had reached the status of cliché. It seemed liked it was hamming it up and expecting people to be delighted with it like a 12-year-old who has just learned to say "NI!" If I'd been in on the planning and someone had brought up the idea of including Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, my response would have been "The audience will never go for it. They'll just roll their eyes." But my entire Twitter feed and all the media coverage I saw were unanimously delighted.

I felt the same about the use of Always Look on the Bright Side of Life in Spamalot - and about Spamalot in general, actually. I went into Spamalot expecting a pastiche of Python that will make us smile and nod in familiarity, and was very pleasantly surprised to find that it was genuinely entertaining in and of itself, to hardened Python fans and Python newbies alike.

So it seems I think the general public has a higher threshold of entertainment than it actually does. Not sure what to do with that.

Although I still think the Olympics should have ended with the giant foot.

Tragic ungoogleability

This is Monty Python's Galaxy Song:



Very useful for science students! Except who does astrophysics in miles any more?

What this song really needs is a metric version! I've been saying that ever since Grade 12 Physics class, and every once in a while I google to see if anyone has done it yet.

Unfortunately, it seems the band Metric has a song called "Twilight Galaxy", which renders a metric version of the galaxy song very difficult to google. This is a tragedy for science students everywhere!

If you write a metric version of Monty Python's Galaxy Song, or find one elsewhere and want to link to it, make sure you include "Monty Python" in the title to preserve what little googleability is left!

I'm a bad evil terrible person and this post is in horrible taste

But I keep thinking of this:



"There's people with guns out there, sir."

For Python fans

Live Monty Python Q&A at 9:00 pm! Click here!

BURMA!

In honour of World Penguin Day:

We live in a bloody swamp, we need all the land we can get

I really wish I had situations in my life where it would be appropriate (or at least not inappropriate) to wear this shirt.

Things They DID Invent

1. Mine:

Me in 2005.

In the Toronto Star today.


2. Not mine:

xkcd c. 2006.

Terry Jones yesterday.

For anyone who needs a laugh

How did the Bridge of Death get there in the first place?

Gratuitous Python in service of a serious question:

Bridges like the Bridge of Death (I don't know what that kind of bridge is called - I keep thinking suspension bridge but that's like the Golden Gate Bridge) are a mainstay of the historical adventure/fantasy genre.

But how would they build a bridge like that in the first place? How do they attach it to both ends when there's no way to get across in the first place?

Comedy bunny, free for the taking

The Mac guy and the PC guy do the Nudge Nudge sketch.

Ping Python people

PythOnline seems to be undergoing another resurrection! (Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen)

The real reason why Burma changed its name to Myanmar

There's some serious shit going down in Burma/Myanmar right now (it's a whole political thing about which name to use and different media sources use different names and I haven't decided yet what I should do personally). Human rights struggle, oppressive regimes, social and political upheaval, oppression, rebellion, people being killed - it's very hardcore and serious and important and complex and I should be reading and learning everything about it I can in order to be a fully-informed citizen of the world.

But all I can think of is Graham Chapman, dressed as a frumpy housewife, corpsing himself ("I panicked").

I think that's why they changed their name. It's hard to be taken seriously with that image in mind.

Behind the scenes of Python

I'm reading Michael Palin's diaries, and I just read about filming this sketch (sorry, can't find a Youtube). It seems that he stopped traffic to cross the bridge using the authority vested in him by is policeman costume. There weren't any production peope off camera controlling the flow of traffic or anything, instead Michael just held up his hand and the cars stopped for him!

You scream, somebody shoots you...

Leave your radio on during the night?

From Python: "Now here is a reminder about leaving your radio on during the night: leave your radio on during the night."

Now was this a real thing that they reminded people about in the UK in the 70s? (Or perhaps before the 70s?) If so, why? Or did they remind them to NOT leave their radios on (which would make more sense)? But then, why would you need a reminder? The sound of the radio would interrupt your sleeping. Or was there no such thing as reminders about leaving your radio on or not, and the Pythons just made that up from nowhere?

Edited with more from the same episode:



When the timer shows 1:55 (embedded youtubes count backwards for some reason), Eric is wearing a Gryffindor scarf!



I may have blogged this one before, but since I'm here anyway, the conversation at 5:35 reminds me of people who claim they aren't opposed to same-sex marriage but don't want it to be called marriage.

Removing demographics from comedy

(Note: because of the number of youtube links in this post, I have not coded my links to open in a new window, as multiple open youtube links sometimes crash computers. If you would like the links to open in a new window, right-click on them and select "Open in New Window".)

This train of thought started when I was looking for the Four Yorkshiremen, and found a more recent version (Enfield, Rickman, Izzard, and Reeves, for those of you keeping score). One thing I found really distracting about the new version was the performers' obvious and exaggerated attempts at the Yorkshire accent. To me, this didn't add anything to the experience. While I'm sure is (or was in the 1960s) some cultural reason I don't grok for making these characters Yorkshiremen, they don't actually have to be Yorkshiremen - or men at all. They really just have to be people who are old enough to talk about Kids Today.

But people don't usually think of this. If you put me on a stage and told me to perform a Python homage, I'd reach for a British accent. And if you put me in a pepperpot role, I'd probably start screeching. But if you think about it, these features aren't actually integral parts of the characters. Python characters are British because the Pythons are British. Pepperpots screech because they're female characters played by male actors. I could say "lobster thermidor aux crevettes with a mornay sauce garnished with truffle pate brandy and a fried egg on top and spam" just as effectively in my own voice, or in some other made-up voice, as in a screechy British accent.

So this got me thinking, what if you took some of the classics and redid them, removing all elements that are the result of the performers' own demographics?

For example, take Penguin on the Television as two immigrant grandmothers played by older female performers.

Or imagine Nudge Nudge performed by two thugged-out hip-hop type characters. Or maybe just the guy on the left is hip-hop, the other guy is some stuffy business suit type. You'd have to change some of the language, making the argot less 1970s British and more hip-hop, but that wouldn't hurt the humour of the sketch - all it really needs is for Character A to insinuate, insinuate, insinuate, Character B to call him on it, and Character A to deliver the punchline.

Or what if Mr. Bean changing at the beach were rechoreographed for a woman?

Comedy bunny, free for the taking

The premise: The French taunting scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail was really just a massive miscommunication.

The execution: First, translate the entire scene into French. Then compare the English and French side by side, and look for places where mistakes might be made. Words that sound like other words, common mistakes that Anglophones make when learning French and vice versa, faux amis, etc. Then incorporate these mistakes into the dialogue so that every statement made is a logical and rational response to the previous statement. Any character can speak either language at any time - after all, it's perfectly normal to try to accomodate.

The goal: a bilingual conversation wherein every character thinks they're responding perfectly reasonably to what their interlocutor says, but the end result is (or can be interpreted as) the French taunting scene.

Yes, I might work this out myself someday, but for now I haven't the slightest idea how to do it and don't have the time and energy to try. So I'm throwing it out there for free.